For the first time in a week I smelled food that wasn't an MRE. Hot pizza filled my nostrils, and I could see people lining up around the corner. It was my first venture into capitalism, and it was already paying off.

"I would not have thought of this," Lung said.

He was standing beside me, and we were sharing the very first pizza that had been made on the site.

Taking a bite, I shrugged.

"People needed something to make them feel better," I said. "Buying old carnival concessions stands wasn't that expensive, and it makes being here a lot more tolerable for people."

I had fifty different concession stands spread throughout the camp. Each specialized in one kind of food. Some sold pizza, others sold burgers, others Chinese food. None of the foods required a lot of work, but they were all fresh and hot and the smells made the camp feel a little more like a fair than a dismal place where people had been left to die.

Paying for them had been easy. I'd been going out each morning, pulling different minerals from the sea. Leet told me which were most prevalent and which were most profitable and I started with those. I varied minerals so that I would not saturate the market for any one, although Leet seemed to think that wouldn't be a problem for at least some of them.

"It solidifies your hold on them as well," he said.

He was holding one of the work chits I'd made. People were going crazy with nothing to do, and most people didn't have enough money to buy pizza or burgers. So I gave them things to do, paying them in the traditional form with pizza.

I'd considered paying them in beer as well, but Lung and my grandfather both had nixed the idea. The camp was close to a powder-keg as it was. Adding alcohol to the mix was a recipe for disaster.

Letting three of the oversize metal coins I'd created float in the air in front of us, I rotated them. On one side of them was my face, done in detail enough that it would be difficult to counterfeit. On the other was a denomination.

The ABB and the Dockworkers were sharing the running of the food stalls.

Taking a bite of pizza I looked at him.

"Somebody was going to have to do something. Why not me?"

I'd made a second set of work chits with Lung's face on them; mine was on the back of these. They were less valuable, something which clearly irritated Lung, although he seemed pleased to have his face on money.

People were already trading the work chits among themselves, trading blankets and MREs and even extra work for a chance at pizza and some recourse from the dreadful sameness that was their lives now.

"Sending them out into the city in work crews was a good idea," he admitted. "It gets them out of here and it gets them to work on their own neighborhoods."

"People were going stir crazy," I admitted. "I was afraid people were going to start using drugs just out of being bored, if nothing else."

"They don't have enough money for very many drugs," he sniffed.

I was sure he knew what he was talking about. Drugs had not been one of the things that I had demanded that he stopped during our first meeting. I regretted that now, but I suspected that it would have been one thing that kept us from making the deal at all.

After all, the involuntary sex trade had only been a small portion of his business. Gambling and voluntary sex work had been much larger, along with drugs. Even now I sometimes saw ABB members setting up small betting rings around things as small as which tortoise would win a race.

They'd made some sort of deal with Dad not to interfere with things like that; in return they offered extra help to the Dock workers, and relations between the two groups had thawed somewhat.

"I thought the PRT would blow a gasket when they saw the work chits," I smirked.

The city government had been doing everything they could to separate me from the people. Obviously they saw my influence with people as being as great a threat as my actual parahuman power. However, rebuilding the electrical grid had been the work of less than a week given the powers I brought to bear.

All of the major junctions had been repaired, and the work crews had focused on the wealthier areas. They were now working on the poor areas, which I found a little optimistic. After all, there were no houses there to run electricity to.

I'd cleaned the streets of downed electrical lines and debris as much as I could. The work crews were now helping people to retrieve their belongings, scavenging under the watchful eye of supervisors. In general the people who owned homes that were now being scavenged were sent out with the crews.

They were given cameras and were told to photograph everything. It was necessary for insurance to pay for their claims, and for FEMA money. FEMA generally paid only thirty three thousand dollars maximum, and that wasn't nearly enough for people to replace their homes, but every dollar helped.

Unfortunately, due to the sheer numbers involved, people were being told that it might be as long as five to six months before FEMA inspectors could be out to inspect properties. I wasn't sure why that was. After all, during a normal storm there was a lot of damage that could be hidden and inspections took time. In this case, houses were usually razed to the foundations, which seemed like something the Inspector could simply drive by, take a few pictures and then make a check mark.

"I'm not sure it's worth what they are paying though. They found fourteen bodies today... I'm not sure there's enough pizza in the world to be worth that."

The work crews weren't the only ones to find bodies. I'd found a lot myself when I was clearing out debris. The difference was that I was usually floating in the air high enough that I didn't have to smell the stench of death and decomposition and that I wasn't close enough to see the faces. The people working the crews did, though.

Nobody seemed to resent me, though. They took pictures and posted them on several boards that had been set up at the center of camp. That way if people saw a relative they had not known was dead there were people there ready to console them.

The area was cordoned off from children for obvious reasons.

"I hear you are offering people money for their land," I said, staring out at the line of people. They looked happier than they had in days, even happier than they had been when I'd set up portable showers. People had been stinking for a while, and it was something I should have done earlier.

"Only because you were doing it first," he said. "I assumed that you knew something that I didn't."

"I was just buying out my neighbors," I said. "I wanted to build a bigger complex without people complaining because I'd put a shadow over their flower garden."

"Renovating the neighborhoods is going to take money that these people do not have," he said. "Most of them probably won't be coming back."

"It'd be nice if they had a chance, though," I said.

I knew what he said was true, though. There had been a constant trickle of people leaving the camps as they'd found shelter with family members in other cities and states. It wouldn't take much to turn that trickle into a flood if people had other options.

The problem was that a lot of the people in the poor areas had worked in the poor areas in businesses that had been destroyed. Without jobs there was no way they'd ever be able to reestablish their lives or rebuild their homes.

Yet without these people Brockton Bay wouldn't be the Brockton Bay that I knew. Having the poor leave and the rich remain might be good for the bottom line, but it would be bad for the culture.

"We will rebuild this city like a Phoenix from the ashes," he said, looking off into the distance. "I did not think Leviathan could be face3d, that he was an inevitable force of nature and that the end was as inevitable as the sunrise. I am glad you convinced me of different."

"Still, we can't keep people working on scavenging forever. Eventually we're going to run out of houses and basements to search, and then we'll need some real work to give them."

Also, the amount of pizza I was going through I'd actually need to find some buried treasure before long.

"I have heard that the Protectorate has been making dolls of you even though you are not one of their own."

"I get five percent of the sales proceeds," I said. "And the other five percent goes towards things the camp needs. When this is over it will go to charity."

It was amazing how fast the production had ramped up. I had no access to the Internet, being too busy to go to Boston to check, but Leet apparently thought that I'd somehow 'broken' the Internet.

I wasn't sure exactly what he meant, but apparently I was all that people had been talking about for the past two weeks. Interest in me had exploded, and there were talks about a Hollywood movie being made about me.

My lawyer had made sure I would get a cut.

Apparently they were thinking about having some actress I'd never heard of play me. Personally I couldn't see the appeal. They hadn't even talked to me, so how did they think they were going to get my story right?

With my luck Emma and Sophia would be made out to be heroes for triggering the Ender of Endbringers.

Lung chuckled. "I'd never thought that honey would work better than vinegar, but you have proven me wrong."

"What?"

"You are now the undisputed warlord of the city. People look to you before they look to the government or the PRT. You even have your own money. None of us would have been able to do that through intimidation or fear."

"Love is stronger than fear," I said. "People only fear you as long as they are within your reach, but if they love you they will follow you even when they know you are nowhere near."

"They fear you as well," he said.

I shrugged. "Fear helps to motivate people. You think children don't fear their parents even as they love them?"

"So you see people four times your age as your children?" he asked. "How condescending of you."

"If they act like children, how am I supposed to treat them?" I asked irritably. "They keep putting blockades in the way of doing what is right for people because it threatens their positions or their sense of how things have always been done."

Lung chuckled. "Superheroes always think they know better than everyone else... otherwise why try to change the world?"

"Maybe because some people actively try to tear it down?"

"When you are on a sinking ship, why worry about tearing off doors?" he asked, ignoring my dig at him. "It is different when there is a chance that the ship can be saved."

I wanted to argue with him, convince him that there was always a chance, but he'd just think I was young and idealistic. He'd probably say that it was my power that made me think that, and that ordinary people had none of the leverage I had to change things.

"I understand you are trying to save the dog girl," he said.

I nodded. "I think it's going pretty well. The PRT are being a lot nicer about it than I'd expected. My lawyer thinks they can get her off with probation and community service, or maybe with some time in a minimum security facility working with dogs."

"Power has it's privileges," he said. "Anyone else who asked would find her in prison unless she agreed to become a Protectorate patsy."

"Yeah," I said. "I get the impression she's not much of a team player. I don't understand how the Undersiders have managed her. Speaking of, have you heard anything about them?"

I'd had thoughts about folding them into my group. I wasn't sure what Tattletale actually did, but Lung thought she was some kind of a thinker. I needed all of those that we could get. Their leader's darkness control wasn't really all that useful, and nobody knew what Regent even did, but I'd rather have them with me than against me.

After all, the time I spent fighting useless battles with other gangs was time away from my plans for the city and for the Endbringers.

It wasn't as though I had any real plans for them though. I doubted they'd fall for the same trick Leviathan had; the Simurgh would know what I planned before I even planned it, and there was no guarantee that my grandfather's helmet would protect me.

Energy went wonky around Behemoth. Killing him might be beyond me as well.

Still, people seemed to have confidence in me, which meant that I had to pretend to know what I was doing. I couldn't dwell on the thought that some of the bodies people had been finding might be a direct result of what I had done.

Had my mining of minerals from the ocean been enough to draw Leviathan's attention? Some people thought the Endbringers were attracted by conflict. Had my destruction of the Empire been enough to trigger a visit?

Had the buildings I'd used as ammunition really been completely empty? I'd given them a casual scan, but there hadn't been time to be thorough. People hiding in bathrooms or places with a lot of metal might have been invisible to me.

Still, I knew better than to focus on that. If I did, I'd spiral into the same sort of pit as my dad had after Mom died, and I'd be useless to anyone.

"There are rumors that Coil simply moved elsewhere. Perhaps it was your demonstration of the kind of hospitality this city has to offer. Perhaps one of his thinkers saw something that we have not seen yet. The Undersiders have simply vanished with him, although Tattletale did show up to the last battle."

It was inconvenient, but I'd make do. I suspected that a lot of parahumans would want to work with me after what had happened with Leviathan.

"I've been thinking about companies we can start," I said. "Get people to working again. You've got some money; would you consider going into business with me?"

"We aren't already?" he asked. He hesitated. "Funds are growing difficult to acquire for the moment. No one is working, which means that money is not being made. Even if we did not have the restrictions you imposed, you can hardly squeeze money from people who have none themselves."

"Getting people jobs is kind of the first step to getting the city back in order. Infrastructure would help, but every time I bring something up the city shoots me down."

My ideas for a high tech ferry, something I could have easily built had almost seemed to offend everyone. They'd claimed that untested Tinkertech would have to be extensively tested, and that building it myself would break a dozen federal laws.

Replacing roads would be considered defacing public property. The roads belonged to the city or the state.

Even building people low cost housing had run into roadblocks. Building permits were required, and the building that the permits were issued from had been destroyed. Blueprints would have to be sent to the city and examined, and I doubted that my grandfather had ever bothered with blueprints in his life.

There were all kinds of rules about facades and colors that were allowed and building materials. It was frustrating; I sometimes felt as though I was slowly but surely being strangled in red tape.

"Lung," I began.

Before I could say anything else, I heard a song in the distance. It was powerful and mesmerizing, and my world suddenly shrank until all I could hear was the song. I'd heard the voice before, but I couldn't place where.

In the distance I saw people falling down, dropping as though their strings had been cut.

Around the corner walked a group of three people. All three were chillingly familiar; one had been in the news recently.

She had a collar around her neck made of metal and with blinking lights. She looked terrified.

The other two were worse. A small girl in a blood stained lab coat and a tall, slender goateed man stood on both sides of he girl. The man had his arm around her shoulders. He was looking directly at me and smirking.

The little girl barely seemed to notice me. She was looking down at a device in her hands.

I stood frozen, as did Lung. I tried to force myself to move, but all the energy had left my body. I couldn't force myself to do anything even though in the back of my mind part of my mind was screaming.

As I stared at them I had one thought.

When did Canary join the Slaughterhouse Nine?